Why Do Nurses Tend To Wear White?

By Josephine Reid

In relation to the classic white nursing uniform scrub, the color white symbolizes purity, honesty, cleanliness, and a variety of characteristics that one wants in a nurse, according to TheNerdyNurse.com.

White is associated with light, goodness, innocence, purity, and virginity. It is considered to be the color of perfection.White means safety, purity, and cleanliness. As opposed to black, white usually has a positive connotation. White can represent a successful beginning. In heraldry, white depicts faith and purity.In advertising, white is associated with coolness and cleanliness because it’s the color of snow. You can use white to suggest simplicity in high-tech products. White is an appropriate color for charitable organizations; angels are usually imagined wearing white clothes. White is associated with hospitals, doctors, and sterility, so you can use white to suggest safety when promoting medical products. White is often associated with low weight, low-fat food, and dairy products. -color-wheel-pro.com

Patients could easily identify their nurses when they were all wearing the same uniform scrubs color. These days, the nursing community often frowns upon white uniforms and therefore they are no longer the worldwide standard.

This is partially because of the impossibility of keeping it clean and because of the backwards images of nursemaids these uniform scrubs helped to enforce.

In the 1940's, aseptic technique was routinely employed in operating suites to stop infections and pathogens from spreading. To emphasize cleanliness, operating room attire was white. The combination of white surroundings, white apparel and bright operating room lights, however, was believed to cause eye strain for surgeons and staff. As a result, operating-room attire was changing to various shades of green by the 1960's.

Among other benefits, this change of color was found to reduce eye fatigue, provide a high-contrast working environment and make bloodstains less obvious. As time went on, hospitals and healthcare organizations are having their nurses wear matching uniforms scrubs but going away from the traditional white. Instead, blue seems to be the scrub color of choice.

I'm Josephine Reid and I work at Dressamed.com headquarters in Los Angeles. I have a B.S. in Retail Merchandising and Business from the University of Wisconsin-Stout. I like to keep a beautiful balance of a creativity and business mindset.